Chennai, Oct 7 (IANS): Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Thursday handed over cash awards totalling Rs 3.98 crore to paralympic athlete T Mariappan and several chess players and a coach for bringing laurels to the country and the state with their sterling performance.

Stalin handed over a cheque for Rs 2 crore to Mariappan for winning the silver medal in the high jump event in the recent Tokyo Paralympics.

He also handed over cash incentive of Rs 92 lakh to state chess players and coach, (V. Anand, Aravindh Chithambaram, R.Praggnanandhaa, and R.Vaishali Rs.20 lakh each, coach Srinath Narayanan Rs 12 lakh) who were part of the Indian team that won the Gold in the 2020 FIDE Online Olympiad.

The chess players who were part of the Indian team that won the bronze medal in the 2021 edition of FIDE Online Olympiad (Anand, Praggnanandhaa, B.Adhiban, Vaishali, B.Savitha Shri) were given a cheque for Rs 10 lakh each and the men's team coach Narayanan got Rs 4.5 lakh and the women's team coach B.Shyam Sundar Rs 3 lakh.

In addition, Adhiban got a cash award of Rs 20 lakh for winning the individual gold medal for the first board at the World Team Championship held in Kazakhstan in 2019.

Stalin also handed over cheques for chess players who had secured various titles (Grandmaster (GM) title P.Iniyan, Woman GMs Srija Seshadri, V.Varshini, P.V. Nandhidhaa - Rs 5 lakh each, and International Masters (IM) V.S. Rathinavel, M. Pranesh, WIM Savitha Shri - Rs 3 lakh each).